Updated : 2021-02-10 ( Wednesday ) 5:20 PM
Note : This post is actually an expanded edition of a Facebook post from a year ago.
Table of Contents
I. A NEW NEIGHBORHOOD—AND A NEW LIFE…WITH FRIENDS MY AGE!
II. THE SIGHT OF SNOW
III. THE LILAC PRIVACY FENCE
IV. FRESH PAINT & OLD SCHOOL RADIATOR HEATING
V. MOWING THE HUGE LAWN
VI. THREE INTERESTING POINTS
———-1. A CONTROLLED BURN
———-2. LIQUOR FACTORY
———-3. RESTLESS SPIRITS
——————–(A) THE DOGS
——————–(B) THE INTERCOM
——————–(C) THE DART BOARD
——————–(D) THE DREAMS
VII. THE POSITIVE MEMORIES
———-1. THE SONGS
———-2. PETS & FRIENDS
——————–(A) Rusty
——————–(B) Frieda
——————–(C) FAHRENHEIT
——————–(D) JIM SPOLAR
———-3. MY FAVORITE TEACHERS
———-4. MOM’S SUNDAY MEALS
VIII. THE DESIRE TO RETURN THERE—FOR EVEN JUST ONE DAY!
I. A NEW NEIGHBORHOOD—AND A NEW LIFE…WITH FRIENDS MY AGE!
This is the house we moved into in mid-December 1972.
It was just before Christmas, and I knew that after the holidays I would commence the Second (Winter-Spring) semester of 4th grade at Lincoln School—Mrs. Hutson’s Class.
In our move into Lyons, we had moved :
[A] FROM—-an area of farmland of Francesville, Indiana, where there were no kids my age. Not one (outside of school, that is) not even close; miles away in any direction was the minimum for me to travel, if I wanted to go hang out with anyone (my age or not) , so I had no one to hang out with :
Rural Home Link : Image Location
[B] TO—having three kids exactly my age on both sides of my new home: next door to the east were the Rank boys, both in 4th grade, as well; and next door to the west, was Kelly Ehlo, also in 4th grade.
Wow! I couldn’t believe my luck.
They weren’t three miles away in town; they weren’t three blocks away; they weren’t even three houses away. They were right next door—on both sides of the house.
I just can’t say “Wow!” loud enough to show my amazement at such luck, and what a welcomed change that was in my life!
It was also the house where I established my first best friend, Jim Spolar, who lived two blocks away on 45th Place, and, who I sadly discovered in January 2018, had recently passed away from lung cancer.
Like this house, I will miss Jim….a LOT!
II. THE SIGHT OF SNOW
Photo Source : Pucciebooks on Pixabay
Being the beginning of winter, there was snow on the ground and it set the tone for my new life in my new home.
So, to this day, snow (not always, but frequently) reminds me of that time when we moved into “8650 W. 44th Place in December 1972”.
III. THE LILAC PRIVACY FENCE
Photo Source : hedgesonline.co.uk
The property was originally surrounded by literally 8-to-10-feet tall, very thick Lilac bushes, which gave our house a lot of visual privacy—i.e., in the warm weather months, when the bushes were in bloom, you couldn’t see into the yard from the street. It was like a privacy fence made out of bushes.
I thought that was so cool.
But, then, in the spring of 1974, my dad—with the help of one of his friends who had a back hoe or ditch witch—decided to pull the bushes out and visually expose the property.
Why?
I don’t know.
I really liked those bushes.
IV. FRESH PAINT & OLD SCHOOL RADIATOR HEATING
Radiator Link URL Address
Painter Link URL Address
Also, when we first moved in, my father did a lot of interior painting, so, to this day, every time I smell fresh paint, I’m immediately taken back via “Memory Lane” to that house and so many reminiscent thoughts go through my head.
The same thing goes for the smell of a newly-booted-up heating system.
Unlike modern houses with Furnace-based ducted heating systems, this house was very old school radiator-based heating—heck, the one room on the back porch had no heating at all, and both my sister, Nancy, and I had taken turns using that room as a bedroom.
In any case, the house hadn’t been lived in for a while, so when my father kicked on the heat for the first time, there was this unique smell in the air.
Even so, conventional furnace heating has it’s own smell when you first kick it on for the season, since what you’re really smelling is the forced-air release of all the dormant dust in the duct work.
So, fresh paint and the smell of “new heat” (radiator or furnace-based) brings back memories.
Another trigger is hearing any song off The Beatles’ “Rubber Soul” album, since we played that record frequently while my dad painted (NO! My dad was not a Beatles fan; he was a Big Band, Glenn Miller kind of person. The Beatles album was just simply the ONLY record we had to play on the turntable, so, we played it a lot).
So, when I hear, “In My Life”, “Run For Your Life”, “Girl”, or “I’m Looking Through You”, I might look like I’m in the room with you, but my body is an empty shell, because my mind is 40 miles away, and 50 years in the past, as I’m “breathing in the smell of the paint and the heat” while singing, “There are places I remember…In my life, though some have changed…”
V. MOWING THE HUGE LAWN
We rented this house for a whopping $160 a month(!) from Jack Kennedy, one of the original owners of Unique Plumbing (now on 47th St in Brookfield).
The house sat on what was actually the equivalent of two plots. Being that the house was situated in the center of that area, it had two huge side yards that really should’ve been mowed on a rider, but took about two hours to do with a walk-behind.
Gas-Driven Lawn Mower Link : Image Address
Although we had a gas-powered mower, my dad also had—as a backup, should the gas mower be on the fritz for whatever reason—one of those NON-motorized “push mowers”.
Push Mower Link : Image Address
Man, did that suck mowing with that S.O.B! That was a three-hour exhausting “push fest”, taking breaks every 20 minutes or so, especially on murderously hot days!
After the final lease had expired, one of Jack’s sons, ultimately ended up tearing that house down and building his own home on half the lot, AND the other half had a two-flat apartment building erected on it —there was that much ground to mow!.
“Gas mower, good; push mower bad”.
VI. THREE INTERESTING POINTS
Although my immediate family moved out in 1979 or 1980, my sister, Linda, and her family moved in for the remaining 3 or 4 years before that house was taken down.
1. A CONTROLLED BURN
The Lyons Fire Department (with Mr. Kennedy’s blessing, I’m sure) used that house ( during the take-down process ) in a controlled burn, as an exercise for the department’s Fire Cadets.
Image Source : Pixabay @ pexels.com Link Image Address
Although there was nothing ominous or accidental about the fire, I’m glad I was not there to see it go up in flames. I have so many memories attached to that place, that watching it burn would have been like watching my memories burn along with it.
Reaction to Fire Link : Image Address
2. LIQUOR FACTORY
This was one of the first houses on the block when it first went up—at least, that’s what Jack told my parents.
44th Place was just a prarie in the early 20th Century when the house was built.
And…the house had some undocumented history, as well.
For instance, it was reputedly used by Al Capone’s men (I doubt Capone, himself, ever visited the place, being that I’m sure it was only one of many “establishments”) for liquor production during Prohibition.
When we first moved in, in December 1972, there was a bunch of liquor-production equipment in the basement, like the glass version of the 5-gallon “Hinckley Schmidt” bottles ( only smaller—likely 1-gallon containers ) and various flasks that looked like they were utilized in the making of moonshine or whiskey or some other celebratory concoction.
Still Equipment Link : Image Address
There was even more severely-damaged equipment out in the remains of the dilapidated garage behind the house, which was soon afterward, torn down and hauled away; and finally,
3. RESTLESS SPIRITS
Although the picture makes the house look almost haunted, that’s purely unintentional since the pic is actually a gray scale scan of a photograph I no longer have. The picture was in color, and looked a lot “warmer” in tone.
However…
There is an ominous element to the following stories:
—–(A) THE DOGS
Throughout our six years in that house, we had two different German Shepherds, BOTH of whom did not like being downstairs in the basement at all!
Rusty, the first dog, was a German Shepherd / Australian Sheep Dog mix, and Frieda was a pure bred.
Frightened German Shepherd Link : Image Address
Both dogs reacted uneasily when in the basement. Their hackles would go up and their ears would be downward as they looked around, and they couldn’t wait to go back upstairs.
What they saw, heard or sensed was beyond our capacity to detect, which, of course, was probably very fortunate, for us, since we’d probably never get any real rest, if we spent our every moment in bed trying to sleep with one eye open, waiting for the boogeyman to pounce on us in our most vulnerable moments.
That has to be unnerving for dogs or cats to realize that their owners are not sensing something that they can’t help but notice.
In one of my other posts, titled, “My Favorite TV Shows : Paranormal / Hauntings“, I elaborate on a YouTube video that’s based on a TV documentary called “A Haunting in Georgia” where there’s a segment of the video where the family dog is barking at something his owners couldn’t see or otherwise sense.
As the owners are wondering “What are you barking at?” the dog’s probably thinking, “What? Are you blind?! He standing right there! Don’t you see him?!”
And they don’t. There’s absolutely nothing there to the human eye; but the dog is snarling viciously as the unseen ( and, as far as the dog is concerned, very threatening ) entity.
Who knows what kind of anxiety humans would endure if we sensed those very unnerving things our pets are terrified of.
In our case, there was a door that separated the basement from the back porch stairway and they’d just sit by that door waiting for someone to open it, so they could dart up the stairs as fast as they could!
—–(B) THE INTERCOM
Being a two-story house, my parents decided to buy a plug-into-the-wall intercom system so we could communicate between the floors without having to shout at the top of our lungs at the back porch stairway.
One afternoon, there was no one home (everyone was out doing something, somewhere) except my dad, Earl, a die hard skeptic WWII vet. He was the type of guy that if you tried to tell him a ghost story, he’d just grin and nod at you with one of those “you’re-an-idiot-if-you-believe-that-story” look on his face.
Intercom Link : Image Address
In any case, he was downstairs in the basement just doing odds and ends, and he heard someone say something as clear as day on the intercom.
“Yeah, I’ll be up in a minute.” he replied as he finished what he was doing, not having absorbed a single word of whoever was speaking.
He then walked upstairs expecting to encounter someone but there was nobody there.
He looked around the kitchen, and walked into the living room, peaked into the bedrooms, but there was no one in any room.
He, then, walked out onto the front porch to see if whoever was speaking on the intercom might have, by chance, just simply walked out there for whatever reason—but, again, no one on the front porch, either.
He then walked to the edge of the porch and looked down the driveway to see if anyone had drove up, but the only car in the driveway was his own.
Later on that day, as each of us returned home from wherever we were at, he inquired to each of us, “Did you come home around, I dunno, one-o’clock, or so? And then leave again?”
Each one of us said, “No, I was [somewhere else].”
Dad Talking to Kids Link : Image Address
From then on, my dad would always talk about that day in casual conversation with his friends in a way that he doubted his own skepticism, so to speak.
He’d conclude that story by smiling, shaking his head, and saying something along the lines of, “..and I’ll be…! I know I heard someone say something! But I went upstairs and there wasn’t anyone home.”
At that point in time, you could—metaphorically, speaking, of course—almost hear the “horror movie, scary music” playing in the background, when he told the story.
—–(C) THE DART BOARD
In the basement, at the front of the house, there was a pretty large room that my brother, Jim, and I shared as a bedroom.
In the center of the south wall was a door that initially ( when we first moved in) was nailed shut.
Dart Board Link : Image Address
On that door, we hung one of those ( corkboard[?] ) dart boards.
One evening, during a thunderstorm, Jim and I were playing a game of darts when we were called to come upstairs for dinner.
We finished our game, and all the darts were IN the dartboard. BUT…when we came back downstairs after dinner, all the darts were on the floor, at the foot of the door.
We just looked at each other like, “Oooookay”, and we’d always talk about THAT day the way my dad would talk about the “intercom” day.
—–(D) THE DREAMS
In all my years in this life, in all my dreams, I’ve never had any dreams of any of my former homes…except this house; and every dream takes place in the basement; and all of them are less-than-heartwarming.
There’s nothing outright violent or bloody, but they’re always only very slightly ominous about them in that there’s always something really cold about them—there’s an obvious total lack of love or friendship; I’m always alone; and I always end up on my back looking up at the ceiling, in a manner similar to someone who might have died in that spot ( similarly looking up at the ceiling in his or her last moments in life on earth), and that person’s spirit is telling me where he died, although, not necessarily “how” since no images of pain or blood or injury are conjured up; but a “feeling” that the person never left alive somewhat underlies the emotion behind the dream.
Bad Dreams Link : Image Address
If the house was, in fact, used for the “criminal” production of liquor during prohibition, it might have been the scene of a death or two—perhaps a shootout between law enforcement and some of Capone’s men? Maybe one of the “bad” guys, was accused of spilling gang secrets to the wrong people, and was killed by his own cohorts as punishment. Who knows?
It’s just definitely NOT a “happy, happy, joy, joy” feeling to the dream—far from it.
Dead Gangster Link : Image Address
VII. THE POSITIVE MEMORIES
Despite the dark side of those stories, I also have far more positive memories of that house.
One of the most common triggers that elicit memories is music. In my case, like many people who hear a song and are reminded of “better times”, this house is the house where most of those positive memories are stored.
1. THE SONGS
The songs that trigger time-specific memories for me are listed below showing what grade those songs remind me of.
One guitarist whose music I for forgot to include in the 7th grade chart was Peter Frampton, whose live album “Frampton Comes Alive” (with my favorite Tracks “Do You Feel Like We Do?”, “Show Me The Way”, “Baby, I Love Your Way”, and “Lines on My Face”) left such an indelible mark on my soul for the love of live music.
But, if I hear “Show Me The Way”, I’m automatically catapulted back almost 50 years, sitting on my un-heated, back porch bedroom, playing that song on my BSR® turntable, blaring out of my 50-watt Aircastle® stereo system (which I later blew up by trying to use it as a guitar amp! LOL).
It doesn’t work very well, nor does it work for very long, should anyone contemplate doing the same thing—sans real amp.
You’ll eventually burn the stereo’s transformer, and end up tossing the unit in the garbage can. I know. That’s what happened to me when I tried it.
I just now wondered : Do they even sell stereos anymore? Or, has the digital revolution made the AM/FM Home stereo a dinosaur of a concept with the alternative being nearly “unlimited space” to store mp3 audio and mp4 video files, and play them via Bluetooth-based audio/video systems?
The next time I stop at Wal Mart, I’ll have to go over to the electronics section and see if they have any “stereos” anymore. Now that I think about, I walk past that section all the time, and I just don’t remember seeing anything “stereo”-looking at all on the shelves.
I’m sure those kids behind the counter in the electronics sections probably never heard of “Marantz” or “Kenwood” or “Scott” or or any of the other names known “in the day”.
But, I digress.
2. PETS & FRIENDS
The two pets we had during our residence at this house, were two dogs : (1) Rusty—a German Shepherd / Australian Sheep Dog Mix; and (2) Frieda—a pure bred German Shepard.
—–(A) Rusty
Rusty spent the first four or five of her six or seven years of life out in the country where there were no other people, so when we brang her to the suburbs, where there’s people everywhere (compared to the rural area) she was not used to that, and she was NOT a friendly dog. We had to put her in the bedroom when company came over.
—–(B) Frieda
Frieda, on the other hand, was far more manageable, but she wasn’t exactly the “Welcome Wagon” when strangers approached the front door, either, as we had a close call with the mailman on one occasion.
Interestingly, when I mentioned that BOTH dogs were apprehensive about being in the basement, where their hackles would go up, indicating fear, or whatever, I had one “friend” who both dogs instantly disliked, and it was not a matter of just their hackles going up, but rather their teeth being shown, and mean growls being heard, as well..
Both dogs sensed there was something really wrong with this dude; and it makes me wonder when animals sense something, do they ever get the feeling that their owners are not sensing the same thing? Do our dogs ever say, “What? Are you stupid? Why you hangin’ ’round this guy? Let me do you a favor and bite him for ya’.?….”
Maybe dogs don’t “think” that far. But, they’re awesome “warning systems” when it comes to certain people with hidden or ominous agendas, that we humans aren’t “detecting” on our own.
—–(C) FAHRENHEIT
The “friend” in question was a person we nicknamed “Fahrenheit” for certain reasons. When we’d shorten his name to a one-syllable utterance, we’d called him “Fair”, for short.
He kind of looked like Nicholas Cage with Marty Feldman eyes, but I couldn’t create such an image for this post since my pre-XP® morphing software doesn’t want to run in the Windows Vista® OS, and it seemed like too much work creating the image online somewhere.
In any case, when Fair was around, both dogs were enraged(!) by him somehow.
I know for a fact that he was mean to other dogs, but he was never mean to my dogs, not because he was “nice” to them, but simply because he could never get near them—no one could.
They just knew he was a bad entity.
I firmly believe that dogs can “detect” or sense bad people, and, in the end, I found Fair to be a bad person, too, on many levels, in fact; but we hung out with him, mainly because he always had a car, and that gave us the freedom to pretty much go anywhere we wanted without having to depend on someone’s parents to lug us around from Point A to Point B and back.
Trust me, I will do a post on Fair, too. There is a ton to elaborate on, where his role in our lives was concerned.
He’s definitely not a “25-words-or-less” topic; it’s more like, “25-pages-or-more” if I was to lay it all out for you. He was a character, and a demonic one at that.
—–(D) JIM SPOLAR
Jim was my best friend in grade school, although we didn’t connect until the summer between 5th and 6th Grades.
The incident that brought us together, was a “fight” between us.
Specifically, we were on a Field Trip literally days before the last day of 5th Grade.
Instead of taking us to an educational outing (e.g., going to Holsum bread or Coca Cola to watch them make bread or bottle soda, like I had done in previous field trips) this was a purely-for-fun trip, and it was only blocks away from school—at Ehlert Park, in Brookfield.
The teacher was Miss Ciccio (who, the following year, got married and became Mrs. Uhler [?]—I’m bad with names ).
Anyway, here we are almost at the end of the day for our field trip, and Jimmy starts approaching people asking them if they want to slap box.
He wasn’t finding anyone to take him up on his offer. He must’ve approached four or five classmates before he got to me.
Finally, when he got to me, I wasn’t interested, either, because I really wasn’t a fighter. But somehow we just couldn’t avoid each other and he took a couple of swipes at me.
“Come on, Colbert. Let’s box.” he kept saying as he did his boxing “dance”.
I didn’t want to do it—slap box, that is.
So, he took a couple more swings and he grazed my cheek.
That stung.
So, I returned fire, but not with an open hand, but with a clenched fist.
Crack!
“WTF, a–h—! That’s not a slap, that’s a punch!” he said as he tried to do the same.
The next thing I know, Jim and I are really going at it with punches, not slaps.
Of course, every time kids see a fight in the school yard, they like to shout out “Fight!” to get everyone to notice and gather around and watch it happen.
Well, that also attracts the attentions of teachers, who like to break up fights, which Miss Ciccio tried to do, by saying, “Now, break it up, boys!”—warnings, which we, of course, being boys, completely ignored and continued on in our hand-to-hand combat.
There were no male faculty present to assist in the breaking up of the fight, but Jimmy and I ultimately ended up “ceasing-and-desisting” in our physical attacks on each other, and the next thing we knew….
We were friends; inseparable friends in fact.
It’s funny how that works—“Violence brings friends together”.
Doesn’t sound quite right, does it?
But, in some cases, that’s EXACTLY how some friendships begin. That’s how OURS began!
Jimmy and I did everything together in 6th, 7th and 8th Grades, and then drifted apart in early high school.
3. MY FAVORITE TEACHERS
I almost included a section on my favorite teacher, Joe Callahan, our P.E. Teacher, but there were so many awesome things to say about him, that it essentially tallied up to being a post all by itself ( “Joe Callahan—P.E. Teacher Extraordinaire“).
So, I will save comments about Joe for his own post.
For now, suffice it to say that Joe and Mister Morris (our industrial arts teacher) were my Favorites.
4. MOM’S SUNDAY MEALS
—–(A) BREAKFAST
My mom liked to make sausage gravy on Sunday mornings for breakfast. Most common is for people to use “bisquits” for their meal, but we just used plain ol’ white bread, and that was just fine by me.
I’d break up pieces of both pork sausage AND bacon in my gravy.
Biscuits and Gravy Link : Image Address
To this day, I still do sausage gravy every now and then.
I just have no idea how close I am to my mom’s recipe, but all I do is fry up bacon, and use the bacon grease with flour and milk to make the gravy.
But when she made it, you can hear the angelic choir playing their harps—the taste was HEAVENLY!
—–(B) DINNER
I also recall the mid-autumn evenings when my mom would be making one of her family-favorite fried chicken dinners, with dumplings or patatoes and corn.
The windows—especially in the kitchen where she was cooking, and also in the adjacent living room—got all fogged up while we sat in the living room watching a Family Classics movie with Frazier Thomas on WGN-TV Channel 9, as I wondered if I’d get my homework done before Monday morning classes at Lincoln School.
Fried Chicken Dinner Link : Image Address
VIII. THE DESIRE TO RETURN THERE—FOR EVEN JUST ONE DAY!
There are times, though, that I wish so much that I could go back there and reminisce—on the front porch, in the yard, and in my old bedroom, and play with Rusty and Frieda and call my friends and say, “Come on over”, or “pick me up, too”, etc.
I could write a book on the myriad other memories that make me wish that I could go back there, even for one day!
But that’s hard to do when the house doesn’t exist anymore.
.
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